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KDE Announces 4.9 Beta1 and Testing Initiative
jrepin writes "KDE released the first beta for its version 4.9 of Workspaces, Applications, and Development Platform. With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the KDE team's focus is now on fixing bugs and further polishing new and old functionality. Highlights of 4.9 include, but are not limited to: Qt Quick in Plasma Workspaces, many improvements in Dolphin file manager, deeper integration of Activities, and many performance improvements. The KDE Community is committed to improving quality substantially with a new program that starts with the 4.9 releases. The 4.9 beta releases are the first phase of a testing process that involves volunteers called 'Beta Testers.' They will receive training, test the two beta releases and report issues through KDE Bugzilla."
I was recently forced into installing GNOME 3 (who knew printing required removing GNOME 2); after trying for a while to get Sawfish working again in the deprecated fallback mode, I gave up and tried KDE again. I have to say that I was surprised: KDE 4.5 was unpolished and painful to use whereas 4.7 is pretty slick. With the GNOME 3 developers catering to some seemingly mythical user, it's nice to see the other major desktop using user feedback to make design decisions.
Hey! The GNOME 3 team DOES use user feedback, you insensitive clods! After they print them out (which requires GNOME 3, as you've seen), they shred them and turn them into fine bedding for their various rodent pets! And the rodents, in turn, whisper great design ideas to the developers!
I am so glad that KDE has finally discovered that new "beta testing" thing. It is sure to improve the quality of future releases.
That is one option. There are hundreds more, including using synaptic or apt to download and install kde (assuming that you already use 'regular' ubuntu). Or on the other end of the spectrum you can also create a linux-from-scratch 'distro' and compile the whole packet. That makes for days on end filled with joy and fun, and it is very educational as well!
I dont know what the options for Amiga are btw...
rm -rf --no-preserve-root /
Not to mention Opensuse is a very good distro with full KDE support. (They do Gnome and other flavors as well).
I happen to think Opensuse does KDE better than anyone else, but that's just my opinion.
Having long ago gone the "educational" route, I'm perfectly happy to start with a well thought out distro these days, and have 4 of them on this machine, in (Virtual Machines), including some pretty old school ones running nothing graphical.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I abandoned Ubuntu when Unity was foisted on users, moving over to Mint.
With the Maya release (aka Mint 13) they've left behind Gnome for a choice of MATE or Cinnamon. I installed the latter, and I'm liking it a LOT.
Lots of good, simple usability, and a decided lack of annoying flash and gadgetry.
Nonetheless, I'll likely give the new KDE a look.
Three Squirrels
Just turn off or uninstall what you don't need.
I find it very stable, and rather surprisingly lightweight considering all the bells and whistles it supports. The current version is one of the best versions of KDE of all time, IMHO.
Nobody I know uses the semantic desktop, its simply a developmental toy, and most people turn off the indexing functions, since they pretty well know what is on their machines and where it is. They've even been browbeaten into deep-sixing their "activities" for the vast majority of users that simply wanted multiple desktops without all the widgets. (Its still there, but mostly caged and toothless).
It does everything I ask of it, and gets out of the way when I don't need it. Their Kmail, which use to be one of the best email MUAs has fallen to unusable status of late, in the midst of another re-write, but Thunderbird and several other are there to pick up the slack.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
"if the desktop bling gets in the way of a smooth user experience then the deskop is not doing its job."
Agreed, which is why KDE is the only desktop I'll use. Everything else has had too many features ripped out mercilessly to be a productive environment. KDE is the only thing left for power users, it seems. It lets me, from the GUI without having to fart around with some obscure desktop-specific config tool:
* Control which desktop newly opened windows go to as a function of the app. E.g, all email windows go to desktop 2, editors and shells to desktop 1, and so on.
* Provide regex-based configurable clipping behaviors when selecting text from any app.
* Provides an extremely rich set of GUI-settable key mapping and key macro prefs, such as mapping caps lock to control (a necessity for touch typists), where this requires some xmodmap stuff in most desktops. In KDE, it's just a checkbox. Or the key bindings *I* want for changing between virtual desktops.
* Provides keyboard controls for everything.
* Is endlessly configurable, for adding new task bars, putting what I want in them, and having them where I want them to go.
And so on. Sure, somebody is bound to say, "hey, but you can do that one in this desktop!" but it's missing the point. Any time I've tried another, it's inevitable that sooner or later I look for some feature which just isn't there. KDE, what I want has always been available.
If you want "bleeding edge, but upstream", then nothing beats Arch.
OpenSUSE: Linux for grownups that earn a living in Linux.
I tried. I really, really tried to cope with Gnome 3 on Ubuntu. When that failed, I reverted to Gnome 2 and found it neglected; things that should work, things that worked when Gnome 2 was Ubuntu's desktop, don't.
Back to OpenSUSE. You might need to beat akanodi and nepomuk into submission and the current release installer gets NVidia wrong, but those are simple problems for competent users to overcome. Once squared away you're left with a usable, feature complete desktop. Protip: replace the distro Flash with the Adobe's RPM.
I must agree 100% with the 'mythical user' jab. As distributed by Ubuntu Gnome 3 offers only pain and frustration for power users. Maybe Mint fixes it. I don't know. Burned enough weekend time getting to where I'm happy so I'm sticking with OpenSUSE.
I'm not an Ubuntu hater. I absolutely love Ubuntu Server (which amounts to regression tested Debian) and use it for several production systems. I'll give it a few years, hope for some sort of upheaval among Gnome developers and then try again.
Dear Mark Shuttleworth,
You're product is being hurt by Gnome. Designing exclusively for novices and causal users will not work. Things that succeed emerge from the power user. Make them happy first. Then hide the things they need and love behind a simplified interface. Macs do not lack features or capabilities, they just avoid bothering lusers with complexity. That's why OS-X simultaneously pleases both grandma and Joe Programmer. Please Mark, you're smart enough to understand this. Stop suffering these Gnome guys and their tragically bad design. Linux really needs you to figure this out at some point.
I'd pay a license fee for it. I swear.
Your's sincerely,
The Grownups.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!